


The Box

by sunnysideup



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Soldier Liam, Teacher Zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7584964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnysideup/pseuds/sunnysideup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam's about to leave for another tour and Zayn finds the box he hid just in case...</p><p>This is a fic based on a prompt of 'What's with the box?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Box

**Author's Note:**

> Liam is the POV in the first part of the fic then for the second part denoted by *** it's Zayn.

He shuts the door behind him and calls out  ‘I’m home’.   He stops next to the mirror, looks at his reflection, the memories of the last few hours with his family in his head, all of them good even the last five minutes though they’d been filled with tears, his eyes now red rimmed.  Just like always.

There’s no response to his call, and he’s not that surprised. They’ve done this before, so many times before and it never changes, except something feels like its shifted, he thinks, _hopes,_ he’s managed to hide it. 

He walks in and out of the rooms downstairs looking for him, but each one’s empty, in each one he runs his fingers over the furniture, memorises it all so he won’t forget, and then he walks up the stairs past the photos, past the memories that they’ve built together.  

He pushes open the door into their bedroom and Zayn’s there, sat in the Bradford City top Liam bought him on his birthday, pair of Liam’s joggers on underneath, on the edge of the bed, chewing on a fingernail on his left hand while with his right hand he fiddles with a loose thread on the hem of the shirt , he doesn’t look up when Liam walks in.

This is new.   For all the times that they’ve done this, for all the fact that saying goodbye each time is painful, its never been like this, there’s never been this kind of silence.

He clears his throat, apprehensive suddenly.  ‘You okay babe?’

Zayn gives no indication he heard, except for the smallest movement of his eyebrows upwards as Liam sits down next to him.

Liam’s never normally stuck for words.  Part of being in the job he’s got, leading all the men, it goes with the territory, finding words, words when all hope can feel lost.   

But now?  In the few hours that he’s been gone, it feels like something else has shifted and he hates not knowing why.

Zayn drops the finger from his mouth then and turns slightly, just enough that Liam can see confusion mixed with anger over his face.  

‘What’s with the box?’ 

“Shit” is the first thought in Liam’s head, the next thought?  “Why the fuck didn’t I hide it better?’’

The final thought is what he voices, even though he knows its not what Zayn wants to hear, that it’s a stupid response.

“You weren’t meant to find it, it was only meant to be found if…”  

“If what Liam?”  Zayn says it quietly then louder, “If WHAT?”  

Liam could lie.  He could spin a thousand tales about how its a surprise for Zayn’s next birthday and that wouldn’t be a total lie, how its just a little box of stuff that’s private for him and he knows Zayn’s not looked in it, and he knows he won’t unless Liam says he can.  But Zayn knows, because Zayn knows Liam and its only that Liam’s been daft enough to think he could do it, get it ready and hide it all without him knowing that he did it in the first place.

‘It’s my umpteenth tour Zayn, and so far I’ve been lucky, so lucky but someday well someday that luck might run out, and well..’

“I don’t want a box Liam, I want you and you made a promise, you promised me that when you thought your luck was about to run out, you’d leave’  

He shifts on the bed then, faces Liam properly and the hand that was playing with the seam reaches for one of Liam’s. 

'You’ve done 10 years of this Liam, you’ve been to more funerals than an 80 year old, you’ve had more sleepless nights and nightmares about what you’ve seen than’s healthy for a 27 year old man and well, I know its selfish but I want you in my life all year round, when it’s going to be time that you say it’s been enough, that you’ve done enough?  When it’s going to be our turn?’

Liam says nothing for a moment because like always Zayn voices the questions he’s asked himself these past months but kept quiet.  Instead of answering them, he’d found the box in a craft shop one Saturday when he was out looking for a birthday present for Zayn’s mum and he’d spent those last few months filling it. With memories, with words, with them.  Something to remember him by if the luck ran out.

‘I love you Zayn but…’

There’s a sigh that sounds as if it comes from deep inside Zayn.  ‘But you love the job too, I get that Li, that’s what I signed up for, I knew it was part of the deal when I met you, but that box and you, you promised’

Liam turns the hand that’s in his over, tracing the lines in the palm of his hand,  and when he looks up from Zayn’s hand, his face isn’t angry, its not reproachful, not how some of the lads in the regiment’s partners are, not bitter or jealous of what Liam does and how it takes them away.  Zayn’s always been so understanding, no matter how many times Liam being away has meant he missed important parts of Zayn’s life.

The exhibitions for the art he does on the side, his graduation when he’d worked so hard to get a First, first day at the school he teaches in, all those things he’s missed and he can’t get them back, and yet there’s never been a hint of anything other than understanding. 

And a box?   That doesn’t compensate for that especially not when the reason he put it all together was all for a time when Liam didn’t come home.

He bites at the corner of his mouth and then lifts the hand up to Zayn’s face, he’s clean shaven right now, looks as young as he did when they met 9 years ago, a few lines more perhaps that Liam makes sure he remembers so when he’s alone at night, and when the darkness and the sounds outside become too much, he can just shut his eyes and imagine him like he’s there. 

Liam knows that he won’t shave now till Liam returns and that first night that he does when he’s so spent and yet the adrenaline _and the memories and the relief of being home_ won’t let him sleep, he’ll wake up and find Zayn in the bathroom shaving the beard all off before he’ll turn back to face Liam and reach out his hands and say ‘Thank you for coming back to me’  

Its all fucked up really and its not the kind of routine that Liam asked for and there’s an itch him that wants to turn back time, that instead of being where they are now on the eve of more months apart, that he could have given his notice and handed over to the next guy who’s been waiting so patiently for so long anyway. 

But its too late and he just has to hope that its not too late full stop, and its that makes him promise like he’s never promised before.

‘I’m coming back to you and when I come back, you can choose whether to keep that beard growing till I’m plaiting it and till the kids in your class can swing from it if they like or you can shave it, you’ll never have to keep those rituals again, and i’ll be the stay at home dad who’ll watch proudly as you make the next 10, 20, 30 years all about you rather than putting everything on hold for me’ 

Zayn’s smiling, lifting his hand to cover Liam’s which remains on the side of Zayn's face. 

‘I don’t think 14 year old lads would want to swing from my old father time beard Liam, they’d rip the piss out of me instead and you don’t have to stop living on my account, it’d just be proper sick you know to start planning together rather than apart you know?’

‘I know’  

He leans forward then unfurling his fingers from Zayn’s hand that’s still in his and placing it on Zayn’s knee and he presses his lips against Zayn’s while his other hand that’s linked with Zayn’s falls away from his face and they hold onto each other, while they kiss and if he shuts his eyes for long enough, maybe he can just wish the next 6 months away.  

Their luck is never that kind of course, and life isn’t like that as Liam pulls his mouth away from Zayn’s just for a moment.

‘We’ll open that box when I come back, promise you won’t touch it’

‘What box babe?’  Zayn smiles and then their lips touch again and Liam moves the hand from Zayn’s knee and uses it to push him backwards onto the bed.

Creating more memories, just this time not for a box.

***

_6 months later_

The box is a little heavier than he thought it would be as he pulls it out of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. 

He turns off the light of the study and walks downstairs, walks through to the kitchen and places it on the table.

He absent-mindedly tugs at the tie and rakes a hand through his hair and pulls one of the chairs away from the table before he sits down pulling it closer again to the table as he does and he places his arms on it and drops his head onto his hands , the headache that’s been looming is right behind his eyes.

The box though won’t let him relax, and so he lifts his head and groans a bit with the pain of his headache, it doesn’t stop him reaching out a hand to the corners of the box.

There’s a light slap on his hand and he near jumps out of his chair with shock.

‘No peeking you, we said we’d do it when we got back from the christening not before, oh and make sure you take some headache tablets, we proper knocked back the wine last night’

Zayn grumbles ‘In a minute’ but he can’t stop the grin on his face as he sits up straighter and then looks across to where Liam’s stood with the fridge door open. 

Liam who came back home in the late afternoon yesterday, 2 days late due to catastrophically bad rickety old fashioned military aircraft needing repairs,  meaning that instead of relaxing they’ve got a christening to go when they should be in bed.  

Liam who resigned his commission the moment they arrived back at base. Liam who won’t be doing any military stuff anymore.

Liam and Zayn who will have to start doing what normal people do and get a mortgage soon instead of living in military housing.  Zayn can’t wait.

‘Can’t we do it now?’

Liam says nothing for a moment, lifts the milk carton to his mouth and swigs some back before he stops drinking, puts the lid back on and places it back in the fridge, shutting the door.  He walks the short distance to the table and sits down in the chair next to Zayn.

‘I dunno babe’  his eyebrows crease a little bit as he says it and he rubs the back of his neck in that way he does when he’s nervous or embarrassed.  ‘I think you may have too high expectations of what’s in there and maybe we should keep the mystery’.

Zayn shakes his head then, scoffing. ‘Fuck that we’re not in Harry Potter Liam and I’m pretty sure that’s not the chamber of secrets so..’  He reaches forward then and pulls the box closer.

‘Oh god okay’  comes the voice next to him.  

He pulls of the lid then and Liam takes it from him.

‘Listen, just remember I was in an emo mood when I put all this together and its all a bit sappy’  

Zayn turns to Liam then who’s already blushing and he puts his hand over Liam’s and squeezes.  

‘Jaan, it could be 3 lots of toilet paper on it enscribed with our names and I’d be fucking made up cos you created it’ 

Liam’s eyebrows lift.  ‘Fuck, all that time I spent and all you wanted was toilet paper, you think you know a person’  He grins as he finishes, eyes crinkling at the corners and for a moment the tiredness in his face lifts away.  

Zayn meets his grin and then lifts his hand away reaching into the box ‘See now I’m going to be gutted if you do-’  

He stops as he says it as he pulls out the first item.  A photograph.   Their first photograph together, a drunken selfie when they’d met in the club 2 hours before and every other thought in his head was gone and had been replaced by the man he stood next to, a photograph  which he thought he’d lost forever when he chucked his mobile phone down the toilet by accident.

He glances to Liam and then back to the photograph, that’s in a frame. ‘How Liam?’ 

Liam eyes drop down to the table and he fidgets with his hands.  ‘I kept the phone, when you tossed it in the bin and said oh well I’ve lost a million of those already and there’s always another photograph of us to take, I kept it and I spent the next few days with a hairdryer drying it out and it worked and I retrieved the photo and…wait there’

‘You sentimental so and so’  Zayn calls as he reaches back into the box and hears Liam run up the stairs. He’s about to pull the next item out when he hears Liam coming back down the stairs and holding one of the dessert camouflage bags.

He sits back down next to Zayn and then tips out the bag, there’s a chewing gum, pen knife and a mobile phone.  Not just any mobile phone.

‘Liam?’

Liam picks up the phone between his fingers.  ‘I love this Nokia 3310 you know and it’s my guilty secret that I’ve taken it with me on each tour since, it still works you know even though I had to turn it off on tour it was just enough, a piece of you along with the photographs’ 

‘I lied about the toilet roll Li, this is just…’

Liam chuckles then says ‘it bodes well for me that you’re impressed with a knackered old phone and our first selfie babe’  

Zayn shakes his head grinning as he reaches back into the box.   There’s a CD which Liam promises they’ll play on the way to the christening and which he says ‘May just contain me singing Mirrors on my guitar when I was on camp last year so pardon the slightly unconventional backing singing from Tommo’ 

There’s a book full of concert tickets, photos, post it notes that they’d leave round the house for each other to find each day with ‘I love you’s’ or ‘meet me in the shower in 5 minutes for the shag of your life Li/Zed’ *delete as applicable

There’s memories for each of their birthdays and anniversaries so far, including a fragment of the coral shell Liam had placed on both pecs on their honeymoon.

And there’s a letter.   

‘You can’t open it though Zayn, it was for when I die and all i said will be all that remains true even when we’re 90, except for the go forth and find someone fitter than me to shag bit, cos at 90 you may struggle’ 

Zayn smirks ‘cause trust Liam to lighten even that moment so he doesn’t, and all that would be enough but then he reaches in and pulls out a paper bag, a paper bag that feels book shaped.

As he pulls the bag again and sees it.  He almost drops it.  His hands feel boneless.

‘I don’t under-’

‘That’s your 30th birthday present, except now its yours a couple of years early, I saw it in that antique bookshop we went looking at in Oxford on that weekend we had there a few months before I left on tour and that’s where I went the next day when I went for a run, you’ve always loved Great Expectations babe and its the first edition and you have to remember that while it cost a shit ton of money, the mood I was in then, the thought I had then was I had to make it last not just for your 30th birthday but every birthday after that in case I wasn’t around - I just…I’m sor-’

Zayn lifts his finger up to Liam’s mouth.  ‘Some people live their lives just knowing what’s coming each day when they’re married, even if they’re not married they’ve got an idea of what’s coming next,  in our way we’ve never known what’s coming next, and that’s been ‘cause of your job, cos of me not knowing when the next commission would come so that’s why I took the degree, that’s why I teach English, and most people would be scared about the idea of one of those things of predictability being taken away from them, and yet here we are and here you are reminding me that in the best way, that’s not going to be us’

He pulls the finger away then and turns his chair round so he’s facing Liam, just like 6 months ago only this time, there are no goodbyes, no need to cram every thought into one day.  

He picks up the book, traces his hand over it gently and then puts it back in the bag and places it back in the box.   ‘This is amazing, and its going to be my 29th and 30th birthday present ‘cause you’re going to be here and now I’m having to revise what I’m getting you for your 28th’

‘So-’

He puts a hand on Liam’s knee and shakes his head.  

‘Stop saying sorry when you’ve never had anything to be sorry for, just stop saying sorry and kiss me before we get in the car and go and get bawled out by your mum for being late’  

Liam leans forward, his beard tickling against Zayn’s lips, while Zayn’s does the same to him.

‘Who died and made you so bossy’ he murmurs as their lips brush against each other before he pulls away ‘Oh and keep the beard, I dig the geeky professor look’ 


End file.
